


sleeping to dream

by alotofthingsdifferent



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-08 01:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16419929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alotofthingsdifferent/pseuds/alotofthingsdifferent
Summary: Tommy didn’t usually put too much stock in dreams; he’d seen things at work that his subconscious twisted into nightmares all the time, so dreaming about old friends seemed pretty normal.  These dreams, though. They felt soreal, gave Tommy an unsettling sense of deja vu that sometimes took him days to shake.





	sleeping to dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hopefor46](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefor46/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I dreamed it was a good one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13224765) by [hopefor46](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefor46/pseuds/hopefor46). 



> For @hopefor46. I hope you enjoy this addition to your beautifully heart-wrenching original!

A few days before Tommy was set to fly to Chicago for the “One Year Out” panel with the old crew, he had a dream. He’s never been a great sleeper, not during the Obama era and not now, walking worn paths through the West Wing like both nothing, and everything, has changed. The interns are all young and fresh-faced, none of them yet showing the tell-tale signs of being overworked and underslept. Tommy knows he has dark circles under his eyes, and he’s lost more than a few pounds in the last few months (a symptom of worrying too much and eating too little). The difference is, he takes it all in stride, this time around. Knows better how to handle his anxiety, how to shoulder the pressures of a job he just couldn’t seem to stay away from.

Still, sleep is usually hard to come by, for Tommy. It’s always been frustrating, but even more so now, when all he wants to do when he gets home from long days at the White House is strip down, fall into bed, and close his eyes. Especially lately, because of the dreams.

He’d been on the phone with Jon, lying in bed with the phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear and his laptop open on his lap. They were going over talking points for the panel while he replied to an email from one of his interns. 

“Feels kind of like old times,” Jon said with a laugh, and Tommy felt a sudden rush of nostalgia for the lot of them -- Jon and his gap-toothed smile, his ever-present optimism; Dan’s understated brilliance and the way he’d kept them grounded; and, of course, Lovett, who Tommy really couldn’t even put into words. 

He fell asleep with the lights on, his laptop forgotten near his knees, and instead of his usual dreamless (or nightmarish) sleep, he dreamt of Jon and Lovett, a technicolor story of life in another timeline, with Trump as president and the three of them co-founders of a media company that was leading some sort of resistance. He’d told Lovett about it a few days later, in Chicago, and a flash of _something_ passed over Lovett’s face when he’d laughed and said, “Trump winning? Sounds like a nightmare.”

“There was something else,” Tommy said, squinting as he tried to remember the part of the dream that had made him wake up feeling warm all over, happy in a way he couldn’t remember feeling in a long, long time. It was gone, though, just a fleeting memory of a feeling he couldn’t recapture at the moment, and he decided to just let it go, afraid to pick at a scab that he’d only recently allowed to let heal again.

It didn’t matter anyway, he told himself. It was just a dream -- Trump was but a footnote in American history, and President Clinton was getting things done in the White House that made Tommy feel proud to be part of her administration. He waved goodbye to Lovett and closed his hotel room door, falling back against it with a loud huff and burying his face in his hands. Seeing Lovett again, in the flesh, brought back too many memories, and too many emotions. More than he was prepared to deal with, much as he’d tried to convince himself of the contrary. 

And so he stripped down, slid into the tightly-tucked sheets of his hotel-room bed, and closed his eyes. 

It was just a dream, after all. 

~~~

_”Tommy Vietor, are you trying to seduce me? ‘Cause I --”_

Tommy’s eyes fly open, his heart jackrabbiting in his throat. He’s sweating a little, his hairline damp, and his dick is hard between his legs. He blinks in the darkness, rolling over to fumble for his phone on the bedside table. When he touches the screen, he groans and falls back into bed. It’s 2:42 am, and he has to be up in three hours. Falling back to sleep after this won’t be easy. 

Dreaming about Lovett was a pretty regular thing by now -- since seeing him again in Chicago a couple months ago, the dreams happened more often than not, to the point where every time Tommy closed his eyes, he expected to fall asleep and see Lovett there. Jon too, sometimes, and a cast of characters that seemed like strangers after the first dream but now, after so many, seem like friends. 

One morning, after a particularly vivid dream about the company they’d started—Crooked Media, they’d called it—Tommy had gotten out of bed and scribbled down a bunch of names on a legal pad, everything he could remember. He looks at it sometimes, black ink indented on yellow paper, and reads over the names in his head. _Elijah. Travis. Mukta. Tanya. Priyanka_. The list has grown to include _Pod Save America_ and _Lovett or Leave It_ , and when he repeats them, rolls them over in his mind, he can sometimes conjure bits and pieces of the dreams—sitting at a table with Jon and Lovett, recording a podcast. Lovett on a stage, beaming as a crowd cheers for him. Signing a lease for an incredible space in an office building in LA.

Donald fucking Trump in the White House.

Tommy didn’t usually put too much stock in dreams; he’d seen things at work that his subconscious twisted into nightmares all the time, so dreaming about old friends seemed pretty normal. These dreams, though. They felt so _real_ , gave Tommy an unsettling sense of deja vu that sometimes took him days to shake.

This dream, in particular, Tommy was going to have a hard time forgetting. Lovett in his lap, hands warm on Tommy’s shoulders. Lovett’s smile reaching all the way to his eyes where they were locked on Tommy’s. The slight tremble in Lovett’s voice, much as he was trying to hide it. _Tommy Vietor, are you trying to seduce me?_

He blows out a breath and closes his eyes, wondering, not for the first time, if he can will himself back to sleep and into the same dream, let his subconscious continue the story it’d been telling him before he woke up. It doesn’t work, of course, so he settles for guiltily sliding a hand between his legs while remembering the dream image of Lovett in his lap, looking at his mouth. He can almost feel the weight of Lovett on his thighs as he lifts his hips, fucking into the tight circle of his fingers. It’s not long before he’s gasping into the dark, coming all over his hand with Lovett’s name on the tip of his tongue. 

~~~

_”I can see that this bed has a headboard. I’d maybe be interested in checking that out. With my hands. On my knees. Wanna help me?”_

Two weeks later, he’s dreamt of an entire relationship with Lovett. In between flashes of kissing Lovett, of holding his hand and curving around his body in bed, dream Tommy and his best friends and business partners were traveling the country doing live tapings of their wildly famous podcasts. It felt so real that Tommy woke up feeling like he could write a book about it. Maybe a screenplay, maybe a dramatic fictional podcast, maybe --

But no, that wouldn’t work, because doing any of that meant telling Lovett that in his dreams, as shitty as the political landscape of the country had become, as awful as the things the president in his dreams was doing, at least they had each other. Even in Tommy’s dreams, the pit in his stomach over Trump as President diminished the minute Lovett came in to view. 

It was a problem Tommy never thought he’d have to puzzle over again. After Hillary won the election, the “solve for x” portion of the “Lovett + Tommy” equation got pushed to the bottom of the pile, locked away when he moved back to DC and Lovett stayed in LA. Now, after weeks of watching possibilities play out in his dreams, Tommy’s desperate to put the pieces together, to dust off the old question and finally get the right answer.

He could text Lovett. He could call him, he could email him, he could show up on his fucking doorstep in LA and say --

What _would_ he say? “Hey Lovett, sorry to barge in on you like this, but I’ve been having these crazy dreams that we’re in a happy, committed relationship and I was wondering if that would be something you’d be in to in real life?” He hasn’t even seen Lovett in the flesh since Chicago, just exchanged a few texts and emails, and the distance between them hasn’t gotten any smaller. 

So he goes to the gym, he goes to the White House, he has dinner with friends, he takes Lucca for runs.

And at night, when he sleeps, he dreams.

~~~

_”God, the way you give it to me”._

Tommy’s eyelids flutter. _Don’t wake up,_ he tells himself. _Don’t wake up_. It’s like he’s watching a movie, waiting for the ending. _Don’t wake up._ He rolls onto his side, back to sleep.

_”Please, Tommy, I want to feel you."_

Tommy whimpers in his sleep, curling his fingers into the sheets.

 _”What got in to_ you _today?”_

Tommy sucks in a gasping breath, his eyes snapping open. Both hands are fisted in the sheets, and Lucca lifts her head from her spot at his feet, blinking at him lazily. He feels cold all over, his teeth chattering loudly, and he wonders, briefly, if he’s getting sick.

That would explain the gnawing pit in his stomach, the familiar ache of anxiety creeping into his bones. 

He has forty minutes until his alarm goes off, so he pulls the blankets up around his chin and closes his eyes, hoping to fall back into the warmth of being with Lovett. 

He dozes off, but the dream doesn’t come.

~~~

Tommy spends the next week sleeping just to dream.

The problem is, the dreams have stopped coming, and by Sunday, Tommy can’t sleep any more.

~~~

_Thomas! I’m doing a show at The Anthem next week. Yes, I know, it’s last minute. No, I don’t want to hear your excuses. Dinner pre-show, drinks post. I’ll text you my hotel info._

Tommy’s still not sleeping. 

Lovett’s coming to visit, and Tommy can’t sleep, and the ache in his bones isn’t the stomach flu. 

The ache in his bones is _Lovett_ , and Tommy knows there’s only one cure.

~~~

Tommy’s already seated when Lovett arrives at the restaurant, and he’s glad for it, because he loses his breath a little at how good Lovett looks, broad shoulders tapering down to his thin waist, his belly still obviously soft under his thin henley. Lovett catches Tommy’s eye and breaks out into a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Tommy pushes his chair back, standing to greet him.

They hug awkwardly, and Tommy has to resist the urge to bury his face in Lovett’s hair. He feels like he already knows what it would smell like -- and that’s probably a weird, creepy thought to have about one of your best friends, but a lot of things about the last few months have been weird, so Tommy forgives himself this one.

Halfway through dinner, with his fork raised to his mouth, Lovett quirks an eyebrow in Tommy’s direction and says, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Tommy flushes all the way to the tips of his ears and takes a sip of water, clearing his throat. “What do you mean? I haven’t seen you in months, man, maybe I’m just -- looking at you.”

Lovett hums thoughtfully, and maybe it’s just the lighting in here, but Tommy swears his cheeks are a little pink too. He kicks Tommy under the table, and Tommy laughs, and things feel almost normal (especially when Lovett doesn’t make any argument about Tommy paying the bill.)

“Still perfectly happy to pretend you can’t afford your own meal, I see,” Tommy teases as he passes his credit card to the server, and Lovett throws his head back and laughs, showing off the long, pale line of his neck, where dream Tommy once left a dark, purpling mark with his mouth.

Tommy has to miss the show, because he has emails to catch up on and a statement to finish, but he takes Lovett’s extra room key on Lovett’s assistance. “I’m only in town once in a blue moon, Vietor, you’re not getting away with only seeing me for 90 minutes. There’s wi-fi at the hotel, and I shouldn’t be in too late.”

And now he’s here, in Lovett’s hotel room, sitting on Lovett’s slept-in king-sized bed with this back against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him. He’s typed and deleted the same sentence at least 3 times, distracted by the thought of Lovett’s curly head resting on the pillow next to him. The room seems familiar somehow, like he’s been here before.

Or like he’d -- he blinks once, his eyes catching on the blotchy painting hanging up near the window. His gaze darts to the curtains, pulled almost closed but not quite, like Lovett had tried to block out the light for a nap earlier. He closes his eyes and rolls his shoulders, and when they bump against the headboard, Tommy goes hot all over. The image of Lovett on all fours, grabbing this very headboard, flashes behind his eyelids, and at exactly that moment, he hears Lovett’s keycard in the door.

Behind his closed eyes, Lovett opens the door and makes a silly joke, kicks off his shoes and his pants, and pushes Tommy’s laptop to the side, replacing it with himself. 

In his head, Lovett teases him about missing the show. “ _Would’ve got you VIP.”_

In his head, Lovett kisses him.

“Tommy?” comes Lovett’s voice, and Tommy opens his eyes to find Lovett standing there with his head cocked, concern drawn all over his face. 

“Lovett,” Tommy says, and it comes out far too breathy, the longing too obvious. Surprise replaces the concern, and Tommy has no doubt that the curiosity in his eyes in genuine. “Lovett, can you -- “

Lovett’s crossing the room before Tommy can say another word, and Tommy’s glad for it, because he doesn’t know what he wants to say. _Can you come here? Can you kiss me? Can you picture a life with me?_ It’s too much, and it’s not enough, and that, Tommy thinks, is Lovett in a nutshell.

Lovett’s weight on his thighs is familiar. His fingertips on Tommy’s jaw, the flutter of his eyelashes when Tommy leans into kiss him, the press of his lips against Tommy’s -- all of it feels like a long-buried memory clawing its way to the surface, gasping for much-needed breath after too much time hidden away. His chest aches with it, and his hands shake where they’re resting on Lovett’s hips. 

Lovett cups Tommy’s face in his hands, peppering him with kisses, and when he whispers, “Tommy,” Tommy’s afraid to open his eyes. This must be another dream, he tells himself, and he’ll wake up cold and alone, missing something he’s sure he never really had in the first place.

“I’ve been having these dreams,” Tommy says, keeping his eyes closed. “Everything was different, and things were -- things weren’t great. Trump was president and shitty things were happening, but we had -- I had -- “ 

He opens his eyes slowly, his heart racing, and he lets out a huff of breath when he realizes that Lovett’s still there, watching him carefully. “I had _you_ , Lo,” he says, his voice cracking, and Lovett lets out a strangled sound, like he wants to laugh and cry and the same time, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smile. His eyes are wet, shining with unshed tears, and Tommy never wants to let him go.

“Do you ever wonder,” he continues, sliding his hand up Lovett’s arm, letting it rest in the dip of Lovett’s collarbone, “what would have happened?”

Lovett gives him an unreadable look and asks, “You mean if Trump had won?”

Tommy shakes his head, because that’s not it, not exactly. “I mean, sure, but do you ever wonder -- if I’d told you, back then, how I felt. How I _feel_. Would you have --”

“Tommy,Tommy, Tommy” Lovett laughs brightly, the smile on his face bigger than Tommy’s ever seen it, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”


End file.
